The last two Bock family structures began coming down this week at Red Rock Canyon Open Space.
The demolition will allow construction of a new open-air pavilion, roughly where the Bock house had been, that will preserve some house rockwork and include small
shelter areas and (eventually) interpretive signage.
City Parks has hired the Westside firm of Charlie Paterson Construction for the $359,000 project. The site straddles the main trail through the city-owned open
space, giving passing hikers and bikers glimpses of the interior of the Bock house, which had been boarded up since 2004, and (on the other side of the trail) the
garage/bomb shelter, which has never been opened to the public.
Both were built in the '60s, and, as was the case with several other aging structures in the former “Bock Compound,” City Parks decided they were not worth saving,
for functional, architectural or historical reasons.
One key aspect of the demolition is salvaging large wood beams from the garage/bomb shelter. The hope is to reuse 20 of the beams, 6 by 16 inches and 25 feet
long, for decoration and roof support on the new pavilion. There had been no certainty of the old beams' condition until they were removed. Some of the first 16 to
come out “are damaged, and we'll have to cull them out,” said Leon Chappell, interim project supervisor. “But quite a few are left in there.”
The project is expected to take about three months. Contractor Charlie Paterson said he believes the trail can remain open the entire time, even though project
vehicles must go back and forth across it. “We've got people at either end who sometimes escort them [trail users] through,” he said. “We're in the midst of the worst
of it now [the demolition], and it's working out.”
The Bocks had owned the property for about 80 years before the city purchased it in late 2003.
The plans for the open-air pavilion evolved over time, with the non-profit Friends of Red Rock Canyon raising $100,000 of the funds with the help of a $50,000
challenge grant.
The Friends also mounted an effort this spring to preserve the bomb shelter for historical or potentially functional reasons, but City Council agreed with City Parks
staff recommendations to go forward with the pavilion project as planned.